Thundercluck!

Chicken of Thor

Publisher Description

Cancel your dinner plans and dig in to Thundercluck! by Paul Tillery IV and Meg Wittwer. This is the first book in a hilarious new series stuffed with Norse mythology, black-and-white illustrations by the dozen, and a superhero chicken ready to ruffle some feathers.

When danger calls . . . BAGAW! calls back!

An evil chef faces off against the god Thor, and a hen's egg is caught in the crossfire. It hatches into a powerful chick called Thundercluck, beloved by the gods but a target for evildoers everywhere. When the Under-Cook threatens to make everyone into rotisserie, there's only one chicken who can scramble his scheme.

Thundercluck! Half mortal. Half god. All-natural chicken.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLYNOV 12, 2018

Feathers and humor fly freely in this series launch, a farce lightly based on Norse mythology. Thundercluck is a chick with magical powers. She hatched from an egg that was laid by Thor's treasured hen, Hennda, who was struck by a lightning bolt summoned by the god during a heated argument with his chef, Bones, who had long sought to dine on the chicken. Bones vanishes, but a seer, Saga, portends his return in one of her jauntily rhymed predictions and reveals that the villain is now craving Thundercluck. A young Valkyrie, Brunhilde, takes the chick under her wing and is heartbroken when the gods whisk her friend off to Earth for protection. Brunhilde is eventually sent to fetch him, and the two (sporting matching horned helmets) take a comedic whirlwind tour of the nine realms on a quest to retrieve Thundercluck's lost powers and best the nefarious chef. Tillery dishes out bountiful allusions and wordplay both smart and silly ("It's a chicken wrap," Brunhilde quips when Thor disguises Thundercluck with his cape), and his note that the novel began as an animated short does not surprise, given its chirpy dialogue, rat-a-tat action, and spry illustrations. Ages 8 12.